Keyboards, mouses, and controllers are examples of typical input devices for computers and video game machines. Operators enter a desired command that they want by using such an input device in order to work, for example, a computer so that it performs processing according to the command entered. The operators watch/listen, for example, images and sounds obtained as a result of the processing, through a display device or a speaker. Operators press many buttons on the input device and do other operations while looking at a cursor displayed on a display device, thereby to enter a command or commands.
In recent years, some techniques have been developed that allow command input by using a video image feature captured with an image capturing device such as a video camera, other than the methods that involve the conventional input device(s) as described above. The applicant of the present invention discloses, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-196855 (Title of the Invention: image processor, image processing method, recording medium, computer program, and semiconductor device), a technique with which a video image feature of an operator is acquired and the video image feature of the operator is combined with an object image that is accessed by the video image feature to produce the result on a predetermined display device. The object image is accessed by the moving video image feature, so that the video image feature itself functions as an input interface.
In order to use the video image feature as an input interface as described above, it is essential for correct and exact operations to adjust an angle of the image capturing device or select an angle of view in order to display an operator at an appropriate position. This often causes complicated and complex initial settings. Insufficient settings or inappropriate position of the operator can result in production of the video image feature of the operator at a position not easily accessible to the object image or can cause misrecognition, all of which may be an obstacle to the correct and exact input operations.
An object of the present invention is to provide an image processing technique with which initial settings can be made easily when a video image feature is used as an input interface, in which the technique is a solution for the problem as described above.